


Lost and Found

by Spookberry



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 18:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30009228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spookberry/pseuds/Spookberry
Summary: Then she spotted something a little strange. Two Pods had kind of toppled over each other blocking off another one that seemed to still be upright, if maybe not a little bent to the side. Not that weird, she couldn’t exactly get to it and most of it was blocked by the pods that had landed against it. However from what she could see of it. The glass was opaque. She’d never seen a pod do that before. Well. She had, but only briefly, and that was when she first met Allura and Coran…A while back, I'd been thinking what The Galra mighta been like before things went south. Which spiraled into me making up an oc and writing this I guess.
Kudos: 1





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> I can't guarantee that I'll ever continue writing this, but I did have fun with it and I miss Voltron so I thought I might as well post it. Not much happens here though if I'm being honest.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, just a whole load of empty and useless clues. Did she shut her laptop with a little more force than was strictly necessary? Maybe, but she was frustrated! 

She’d reached another dead end on the search for Matt and her Dad. She removed her glasses for a moment in order to press her hands into her eyes. 

She needed to refocus her energy into something else. She didn’t get a whole lot of downtime from fighting and “spreading peace across the universe” so she needed to take advantage of the time she did get and maybe squeeze some productivity out of it. She let out a loud sigh and put her glasses back on.

Alright so what other projects could she try to work on instead? Green probably could give her some new ideas, but maybe she should check in with Coran too. He seemed to be in an almost constant state of fixing things in the castle. Probably because the castle was meant to be run by more than just one guy. She’d check with green first regardless, besides Green was closer. 

Closer, as in, literally behind her. She twisted around from her little “lab” area in order to look at the green lion who had been silently observing. 

Well, Green hadn’t been literally looking at her, but the lions didn’t really need to physically indicate things for their paladins to be aware of them. And for the most part when Pidge was tinkering around she could feel Green’s presence keeping an eye and acting as moral support.

“What do you think?” Pidge didn’t even need to clarify, because Green always seemed to just know what she meant and what she was thinking. An excited and almost soothing rumble came to her alongside a series of ideas. Green didn’t do a whole lot of talking, not in a traditional wordy way at least.

One of Green’s ideas stuck with her though and it was the prospect of setting up emergency pods in the lions as well. Not necessarily something the paladins would be able to use, but something that’d work in a pinch for any injured passengers. It’d definitely give her an excuse to learn more about how the pods worked and she definitely liked that idea. She might need to get Coran’s help with it because she doubted she could borrow any of the pods without at least him noticing. 

Then again the castleship did seem to have a whole spare hallway of pods for no discernable reason. It was an offshoot of the pod room they’d had Sendak in. From what she understood of the room Sendak had been, it was typically meant for prisoners who had been injured. Not that they’d really gotten a whole lotta use out of the place. The hall next to it? She wasn't 100% sure on its purpose, but it's not like they were being used.

The hall was a bit odd, a little narrower compared to how spacious the rest of the castle was. It seemed like a design a little more akin to something humans would make. But only in that it used the space it had rather than leaving it empty for Aesthetic reasons like Altaens seemed to enjoy doing.

The more she thought about it though the weirder that whole hallway seemed. It hadn’t occurred to her at first. Since she hadn’t been given a ton of time at that point to really absorb the castleship and everything in it. But the more time passed and the more she became accustomed to the Altaen aesthetic and it’s architecture. The more she realized something was off about the whole thing.

It seemed odd for there to be only one area in the whole ship that honest to god could be described as “a little cluttered”. That is if you don’t include her own quarters. The whole set up of the room was odd and a bit scattered, as if they’d rushed through the planning. A lot of the pods overlapped an awkward amount. At the front close to the Prison Pods there were several of the large ejecting into to space types- which by the way did not seem like a safe design mechanism to include in a Healing Pod, and she’d checked the med bay pods were technically capable of ejecting people into space too which was wild- but she’s getting off track.

Point was the pod hall had a weird array of pods, some were fancy and sleek like the ones in the medbay, some were more akin to the wide prison pods, but most were smaller and a little more cramped together.

The weirdest part about those pods, in her opinion, was the fact that Coran didn’t seem to like the paladins going in there without supervision. She’d never spotted Allura anywhere near the hall either. 

She wasn’t entirely sure what was up with all the secrecy when it came to the spare pods. She’d considered sneaking in and investigating herself on several occasions, but they'd all been so busy recently. And there was more pressing matters to deal with usually than try and explore a dumb hall that Coran and Allura had a weird aversion too.

It kinda made sense, if it was the pods themselves the two didn’t like, considering their thousand-year nap in them. But that didn’t seem to be Coran’s issue with the pods at all. Then again maybe there was some kind of safety issue with that area. After all she hadn’t really tried to explore it more recently and Coran is always busy fixing things, maybe that was an area needing fixed.

After a quick thanks to Green and a soft purr in response, she went about her way to see if she could find the older altaen. Luckily for her he was just on the bridge tapping wildly at one of the controls, she wondered briefly about what he could be up to, before clearing her throat and causing him to startle.

“Oh! Number five, I didn’t see you there, can I help you with something?” 

“Actually Green and I were brainstorming and she thought it might be a good idea to install pods in the lions as well. You know just in case we ever pick someone up while away from the castle and they need emergency care.” Coran’s eyebrows and ears perked up, as he listened. Coran was usually a pretty good person to read, he was always so animated it was as if his thoughts and opinions were stamped to his forehead sometimes.

“That’s a fantastic idea! You’re always coming up with rather ingenious ideas! Although, how would we manage to get that to work?” He began to stroke his mustache in thought. “We don’t want the pods taking energy from the lions, because if you're in dire enough circumstances to need to use one than you probably also need your lion at full capacity.”

“We could install some kind of generator specifically for the pod though!” And like that the two began brainstorming and getting more into the nitty gritties of how they’d make it work. She should probably also get Hunk in on this project. He was better at the actual engineering side of these kinds of things. She was more about code, but for the moment having Coran to bounce ideas off of was good. He did know quite a bit more about Altaen tech than she did.

“Where would we get the pods though? We don’t really have the time to build any.” Coran began to frown, and she scoffed. 

“We don’t need to make new ones, we have plenty sitting around unused in the castle most of the time." Coran stilled, his prior excitement dimming ever so slightly. She wasn’t sure exactly why though. “I mean there’s that whole hallway of pods that I don’t think I’ve ever even been in, let alone had to use.” 

“Ah, those. I think it’d be better if we didn’t mess with those.” He didn’t quite hold her gaze anymore glancing back at whatever he’d been working on before she’d entered. He was hiding something.

“So there is a reason you don’t want us going in there?”

“What would give you that impression?” Coran frowned.

“I dunno, you and Allura are just kinda weird about that area.” She shrugged, and tried to approach things a little more delicately, but not quite sure how one does that she asked “Is there something wrong with them?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say there is something wrong, but I will admit I haven’t fully checked into the systems of the additional pod hall since we’ve woken up.” 

“Really? I know it’s a big ship, but you haven’t even checked-” Coran cut her off, he wasn’t trying to be dismissive of her questions, but it definitely wasn’t a topic he wanted to talk about. That she could tell.

“That specific area of the castle was modified when the war began in order to include more pods, battles are not pretty sights as I’m sure you’ve learned. But they’re especially brutal on those without one of the Lions to protect them.” Okay so Pidge was pretty sure she understood what he was getting at. And while Coran was certainly trying to avoid becoming too grim, there was still something off about him. “It wasn’t a very fun room to be in, so I haven’t quite had the nerve to return to it.”

“I, I’m sorry Coran that must really suck, but maybe you could just let me and Hunk look into it for you? You do enough for us as is, you know?” He gave her a gentle smile, and for a moment he truly looked his age. 

“That is a generous offer to Pidge, but…” He trailed off, his brow beginning to furrow. Was he trying to come up with an excuse? Why not just let them handle this for him? But maybe the bad memories weren't the only reason he didn’t want any of them near those spare pods. She considered calling him on it, but maybe it was better if she did some sleuthing on her own.

“It’s alright Coran, I get it, I’ll think of something else. Thanks for brainstorming with me though.” 

“Of course number five.” He gave her a bright smile, maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed strained. Whether because he didn’t believe her or something else she wasn’t sure.

“I’m gonna fo see if Hunk has any ideas, talk to you later.” That’s not at all what she was going to do. Acting on instinct was more Keith’s style than hers, but honestly how bad could it really be? 

Did she feel a little bad about going against Coran’s wishes like this? Maybe, but also he hadn't outright forbade her from looking at it so... really this was his own fault. Was the eerie sense of being watched potentially just her own guilt eating at her? Maybe, but also she wasn’t feeling that guilty, after all she was doing something good! She was gonna take care of this whole pod issue for him so he wouldn’t have to worry about whatever it was he was worrying about.

Ya know Matt hadn’t been too thrilled when he found out she’d snuck into his room to fiddle with the computer he’d been building when she was in 4th grade, but he was happy to find out she’d managed to fix something he couldn’t seem to get working. She liked to think this was a bit like that.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for in here, clearly Coran didn’t want to be in here, but what for sure she wasn’t sure. She scanned each pod as she walked past trying to see if she could spot just, anything really. By the time she reached the end of the hall though she still hadn’t seen anything.

If that had been it she might’ve shrugged it off as her reading into Coran’s motives a bit too much. But at the end of the hall lay a bit of a mess, honestly. So it turned out Coran wasn’t entirely wrong about it potentially not being the safest area of the castle. Because thrown about at the end of the hall was a bunch of loose pods. Some of them looked pretty beat up and unusable, and the damage seemed relatively new. 

During one of their battles, some of the less sturdy pods could’ve come unlodged and got thrown down the hall. That’s certainly what it looked like had happened to her. So structurally probably not the safest area of the castle to go sniffing around. But these broken dislodged pods could potentially be exactly what she needs to figure out how to get healing pods in the Lions!

Ever so carefully she began moving around the thrown about pods as just a preliminary scan as to what could potentially be useful. Altaen’s really built things to last though, because even the most damaged pods weren’t that damaged. Just a little banged up. 

Then she spotted something a little strange. Two Pods had kind of toppled over each other blocking off another one that seemed to still be upright, if maybe not a little bent to the side. Not that weird, she couldn’t exactly get to it and most of it was blocked by the pods that had landed against it. However from what she could see of it. The glass was opaque. She’d never seen a pod do that before.

Well. She had, but only briefly, and that was when she first met Allura and Coran… That had to mean there was someone in stasis in that pod, right? She wasn’t about to jump to conclusions, but now she felt she absolutely needed to get those other pods moved in order to see the other one. And she wasn’t going to be able to move them on her own, maybe she could-

“What are you doing in here?” 

She jumped and quickly turned to find Hunk staring, and Lance, staring at her. Lance had a brow raised but otherwise seemed kind of bored. Hunk meanwhile had a hand cupped around his mouth as he whisper-yelled at her from a few feet away.

“Wha- I’m not doing anything?” Her voice crack was not especially convincing.

“Uhuh, and the reason you’re staring at a bunch of beat-up pods so intently you didn’t hear us coming was because…?”

“Well actually I was thinking about installing healing pods in the lions for emergencies-” wait was she doing, she could get them to help move the pods! “Actually could you move these two for me?”

“Sure” Hunk shrugged at the exact same moment Lance furrowed his brows and said “no way!”

“Aw come on, please! It’s for a good cause. I’ll even set blue up with one second.” 

“Only second?”

“Look it was Green’s idea I’m not about to not try it with her first.” He seemed to think that was a good enough point. And after a bit more hemming and hawing and Complaining. Man, Lance’s favorite thing to do was whine about things, but he did agree to help. 

After a bit of meanuvoring and figuring out the best way to lift it, it didn’t take too long to get the first one out of the way and for the two boys to notice the exact same thing she had. The glass was Opaque. And more than that, now that they could see a bit more of the pod, it wasn’t too hard to see that there was a silhouette of a person inside. 

“Uh, Pidge I don’t think we should touch anything without telling Coran and Allura about this.” She didn’t look at Hunk, caught by the small symbol lit up in the center of the pod’s pseudo glass. She didn’t know what it meant, but it seemed pretty important, she’d never seen a pod do that either.

“Well about that, Coran kind of told me not to come over here so I don’t think he’d be too happy-” Lance cut in immediately waving his hands as he spoke

“Whoa whoa wait, does Coran know there is a person back here? I mean, if he does then why would he leave them and not tell anyone? Oh man what if they’re like… a criminal, this is like right by where we had sendak.”

“But what if it’s another Altaen?” Hunk was also staring intently at the silhouette, narrowing his eyes as if that might help him discern something. “If there’s another Altean wouldn’t that be good news?”

“Not unless it's a dead body or a criminal!” Lance threw his hands up.

“Come on, even if we do go get Allura and Coran we’re gonna wind up needing to move that other pod anyways.” She wasn’t entirely sure if this was the right choice, but her mind was racing, and they’d already gotten this far so why not? Lance let out a long dramatic sigh.

“Alright fine.” 

So they moved the other pod, they didn’t take it too far, just dragging it to the side so it would be out of the way. Leaving the fogged up pod wide open for them to stare at. Whoever was inside was… Tall, she realized. Probably even taller than Shiro, certainly taller than her. Something about the size and the shape of their head clicked. “I think it’s a Galra.”

“I sure hope not, if it is then there’s probably a really good reason Coran didn’t want us messing around over here!” Hunk was wringing his hands, clearly nervous and uncertain. Glancing from her to the pod to Lance, as if looking at any of them might answer some kind of question.

“Alright, so we should definitely go get Coran now then.” Lance leaned a bit towards the pod, squinting his eyes. And oh no, they definitely shouldn’t go get Coran and ruin any trust he had in her. They hadn’t technically done anything wrong! And she just knew Shiro would try and lecture her if he heard and that’d just be annoying, no way.

“No wait, come on! We don’t-” She wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to convince them. Not that she had the time to try and think anything up, because faster than she could process. Lance had somehow managed to trip as he’d turned to look at her. His mouth opened as if he’d meant to say something. He managed to catch himself before he fell, but only thanks to his hand being within reach of the pod.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, that is not good.” Hunk was babbling as Lance slowly lifted his hand away from the pod and stepped back. The symbol that had been lit up before suddenly blinked out. And for one horrifying moment, nothing seemed to happen. She kept her breath held tight though, and with a familiar noise the pod opened up.


End file.
